It happened again: I have a crush on another one of my best friends. That probably doesn’t seem like such a big deal; I mean, they always say that your partner should be your best friend. “They” probably forget what it feels like to actually fall for one of your best friends.
Me, I’ve fallen in love with four of mine over the last six years or so. I’ve told all of them; I’m not one to keep my crushes to myself. None of them worked out, especially not at the beginning since I was one of those kids who wasn’t allowed to date until I turned 16. I kept swearing to myself after the first three, “not again. This can’t keep happening.”
Then, surprise! I did it again!
I shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, I’ve been debating on and off since March whether or not my feelings were platonic or romantic. I swore they were platonic, but I was also in the mindset of “hey, I would kiss you if you asked me to.” Cue a few different crises as I was trying to figure that one out!
Within the last week, I stayed up late a few nights trying to think this through and get advice from other friends. I almost said something to Crush a few times, but I kept chickening out. I always have. Crush is the one I usually go to when I want to be built up to confess a crush. I couldn’t go to her with this, so I went to a few different friends instead.
First was Friend #1, someone I’ve known since birth and who has much more romantic experience than me. She told me the distinction between being really good friends and having a crush because, let’s be honest here, it’s really hard to tell sometimes. She then proceeded to send me TikTok compilations of the kissing-your-best-friend challenge. Curious, I looked up more on YouTube, where I then saw lots of negative reactions to feelings being expressed, which was very much counterintuitive.
Friend #2 is someone who’s known me since sixth grade, and she’s been one of my closest friends since. She knows that I worry, so she told me to go for it if I’m confident in my friendship with Crush, but if not, to wait. That’s what happened the last three times; I said something about my crush and the friendship began to weaken. I haven’t talked to two of them, really talked to them, since last year. That’s one of the things I’m most scared of.
Friend #3 is a definite hype man for me (and was actually my first best-friend-crush back from sixth to eighth grade). I asked him for advice twice, once back in June and once last night (as I’m writing this on Sept. 16). He’s a big advocate for “shooting your shot, broski,” and even once I told him who Crush is, he kept rooting for me. Neither of us really knows if it’ll work, but he said he believes in me, which is a huge confidence booster.
Finally was Friend #4, someone who I’ve been accustomed to calling my Evil Twin since the two of us have known each other since we were 5 years old. She knows me better than just about anyone, and totally called that I like Crush. Actually, she called it last year, before I even knew that I liked Crush! And because she knows me so well, she took a different approach.
She knows how easily I fall and how many times I’ve been let down/rejected before—spoiler: it’s a lot. So she proposed this: feeling around first before I say anything. Having one of those deep talks with Crush that I’m really good at in order to get a feel for how Crush might feel about me. Even though she doesn’t think the ideal outcome will happen, she still supports me, which I appreciate so, so much. She’s not the kind to tell me to go into this blind.
And, okay, a lot of this is me fooling myself into thinking something could come of this. Crush, as far as I know, is not into girls. Despite knowing that, she talked to me months ago without naming names about her now-boyfriend, and I fooled myself into thinking that she was talking about me. I’m a hopeless romantic as you, dear reader, could probably tell immediately, which is only good until you’ve experienced let-downs and heartbreak so many times. As my sisters and dad joke, I’m less “hopeless romantic” and more “hopeless.”
So here I am, writing this all out instead of talking to Crush. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to her last night, not when she told me how good things are going with her boyfriend. She hasn’t been this happy in a relationship in a long time; I don’t want to do anything to ruin that. And, more than anything, I don’t want to hurt our friendship. She’s one of my favorite people in the entire world; I don’t want to lose her.
Will I eventually do something about this? Maybe. It all depends on whether or not these feelings go away. If they don’t … Well, wish me luck.